How do you stop trespassers?

It’s a tough situation and it looks like you’ve been given some good suggestions below.

Our family lives out in the “boonies” of eastern NC, and we’re blessed to have 10 wooded acres on a large reservoir. I’ve been surprised at the number of people who will come driving down our half mile long gravel drive with a boat in tow looking for a place to put it in.

But let me philosophize a little on the root of the problem.

Our society has moved away from a basic respect for individual and property rights. A collective mentality has taken over in this country and has gradually eroded respect for either. If the nation thinks it is OK to take more from people who have more and distribute it to others, why shouldn’t one of its citizens think it is OK to use your property a little bit?

Both ideas are wrong and have at their root the same evils, namely jealousy, greed and a willingness to steal.

I doubt that trend in thinking can be reversed. History doesn’t seem to suggest these things get better until the time when they finally collapse (aka the former USSR). But if you wanted to help slow that trend, you might consider voting for libertarians (they might be a bit strange, but they will always respect your property rights) or for the most old fashioned politically incorrect arch-conservative candidate in any election. Somebody like Walter Williams or William F. Buckley.

Moving on from the political point of view …

Being “neighborly” is a good and Godly thing. Your neighbor isn’t being neighborly, and he’s putting you in a situation where you aren’t going to feel very neighborly towards him. It is his responsibility to treat you and your property with the utmost in respect and he hasn’t done either.

A proper relation between neighbors starts with expecting nothing and yet being always willing to offer friendship. That’s the kind of starting point that blossoms into friendships and neighborly assistance. No one starts by taking any liberties or even asking for them. Every step begins with an offer. That’s precisely the kind of neighbor that moved in to the property next to us about a year ago. They’re an elderly couple raising a granddaughter. Since they were driving her to the same school we were driving one of our daughters to, we offered to take her. They didn’t ask, we offered and they accepted. On the first day, they had their granddaughter walk to our house so we wouldn’t have to pick her up and she was there before it was time to go. They didn’t want us waiting on her or having to go out of our way at all.

So we offered to pick her up and they accepted. And they offered us their excess eggs and the opportunity to pick some of their excess butterbeans. And earlier this spring when I was working hard to spread a load of top soil with a shovel, my neighbor drives his tractor over to the property line, gets my attention and offers to come spread it for me with his tractor. (That was before I bought a ’49 Cub.)

Good neighbors are a wonderful blessing. Bad neighbors are people to pray for.

BrendonV

The second is where I live. I have 20 acres behind my house. When this house & the similar one next door were for sale the neighbor opted to buy the cheaper one without land. They figured it is just open land, no one will care if we run our snowmobiles & let our kids/dog play there. It seems that all their unfair neighbors won't let them do that anymore.

Some people can't understand the concept of if you want to use some land then buy some (I've been penny pinching all my life to get what I have). For the cost of a new atv they could buy a nice little piece of dirt.

Sorry, i'm starting to rant
Weekend

Forty shingle nails placed where you don't drive,
and they do will get you a onsite picture. Make em rusty,leave in coffee can, with water and
salt., aged to perfection, looks deceving in a tire.

I got some dog chow, and a piece of rope, and when this dog came the next time, it didn't take long to get him tied up in the barn.

For three days the owners were driving up and down the road looking and calling for him, his kids were crying, etc.

On the fourth day I called him and said come get your dog. Of course I had fed the dog well, and I had taken good care of it (it isn't the dogs fault), but I told him the next time he came on my property he might disappear. He never has been back.

Might work on the kids too! lol

Take Care
Steve

• Cedar Ranch

I enjoyed the pictures of your place. Always sorry to hear about a neighbor damaging another neighbor's property. If only everyone would obey the "Golden rule", 90% of the laws in this Country could be repealed.

Terry

In Kentucky, if you do not have signs posted then you have little recourse. However, with signs posted clearly, you can get a first degree trespassing conviction.

Next time he calls you an a-hole tell him that you can be anything you want to be on your own property.

But you will also have to weigh out the possibility of winning the battle and losing the war. Some people are truly scum. Not saying that these neighbors are or are not, I don't know. But if they are the type who will wage war against you, you must weigh that consideration. Having your house burned down, etc.

Remember, no man-traps. No secret pits, no wires strung between trees to gulitone the kid, etc. If you ever do any of those things, you will lose it all to these neighbors. No matter how tempting and reasonable they seem.

The American legal system is set up to defend the criminal, and prosecute the victim. Always remember that when you are playing the game. It helps you to win.

"What's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine".

"GOOD FENCES MAKE GOOD NEIGHBORS"
Author-----Robert Frost?

My point to this tirade is it isn't the kids fault, it's the parents. The parents have no respect so the kids will have even less.

One of Karl Marx's planks in the Communist Manefesto was to educate the masses in collectivism, to get it to become a way of life. Thus, the problem doesn't lie with the trespassing child, but the parent who was taught to be "pink" in their thinking. Who does that narrow-minded, capitalistic land owner think he is by denying the neighbors the use of his land? We should all share: "What's mine is mine and what's yours is mine."

I am a product of public education, and it was hammered into me that our collective government can provide needs and answers better than the individual and the free market economy.

Why should one person have more property than another - we're all equal aren't we? If someone can use someone else's property, why should he work more or harder to have something of his own?

The economy of the USSR collapsed because the people had no equity in their labor. Crops would lie ruined in the fields because workers on the collective farms received their government income and food allocation regardless of productivity. The nation with the largest land mass on earth couldn't produce enough for its own, but had to import from around the world grain to feed the people.

Give someone incentive and an opportunity to make a buck and he'll generate a surplus of product.

Ken McWilliams
Dayton, OH

Your turn, :) Robert

• Scalia 5 in action

What does a yank going to South Carolina flying a flag on his boat have to do with the man's original problems with trespassing violators???

I'm honestly trying to figger out if his going south to fly the stars and stripes in the Carolinas means he's a draft dodger or a veteran????? That should be a simple enough question even for a yankee.

I'm gonna over look your pond scum comment because with you being a full fledged yankee your stupidity and arrogance gene is bred into your ignorance. I realize there's nothing that can be done except to look over your behavior.

If there is no registration along with the right to own firearms then there would'nt be any problems with permits.

If the end results had shown Prince Albert to have won by 2 million votes how would we unseat Scrub anyways????.

The results I read on the NYT recount showed Prince Albert won by 2200 votes if the rules of order had been followed statewide in Fla.

BTW I am a conservative. A conservative Demogog but a conservative none the less.

Geeze fella....get a clue.

Like I said, some of the extremists on one end of the spectrum would outlaw your 870 and your model 700 for the exact reasons you stated.

On the other hand there are a lot of folks that think they should be able to own automatic weapons and rifles that fire 500 times without reloading just because they think they are fun to shoot.

A lot of people like yourself could probably be trusted with a fully automatic MAC 10 but there are at least that many more that couldn't. For that reason I think we need some controls on who can own them.

Then there are those on the other side who think there should be absolutely no regulations on owning guns - that anything goes, anywhere, anytime, no questions asked. I disagree with that crowd too. That's one reason I got out of the NRA years ago.

I think most of the folks in this country are somewhere in the middle. I firmly believe in the right to bear arms. I own 21 guns and would not hesitate to use one if I am forced to - Hope I never am!

During my lifetime I have observed a lot of misuse of firearms, mostly due to ignorance and carelessness. I shudder to think what some of these people would do if they could go down to the local hardware store and buy a fully automatic weapon. WE NEED SOME CONTROLS ON GUNS.

Whatever you do, don't just hope the problem will go away. These kind of people are scum of the earth. You're going to have to teach them the rules.